Facebook, Netflix Face Fresh Scrutiny as India Tightens Grip
- India reins in social media, streaming with new guidelines
- Country joins the fray in targeting Silicon Valley giants
Photographer: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images
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India joined the global regulatory push to rein in Silicon Valley technology giants, tightening rules that govern how social media and streaming companies do business in the world’s biggest democracy.
The new rules that come into immediate effect will require the likes of Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. to take down unlawful content quicker, Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in an online briefing Thursday. Messaging apps can be asked to provide the identity of the originators of unlawful messages on their platforms, Prasad said, implying the likes of Whatsapp may have to break the encryption and dilute users’ privacy safeguards.